DEA and FDA Corrupt - you make the call

The articles below discuss the DEAs decision to Not reclassify cannabis from Schedule 1, denoting there is no medical value derived from cannabis. I can tell you from personal use this is completely absurd. At the very least all strains of marijuana have anti inflammatory properties.

When thinking about pot / cannabis / marijuana (what ever you choose to call it) cannabis is an amazing gift our planet has offered us. It is unfortunate the government, has chosen to suppress its benefits from us so they are able to further their profiteering agendas.

One aspect of cannabis and hemp products is that they contain many different cannabinoids. The human brain has cannabinoid receptors, millions if not billions. It is a fit made by nature, how are we to deny that. It reduces the dependence on the medical industry.

The alcohol industry also lobbies against the legalization of cannabis because people who smoke or consume pot products drink less. Some even move to not drink at all after smoking. Again from personal use of cannabis and alcohol, weed is much better for the body and I will definitively say the body and mind benefit from consumption of cannabis. One thing to note here, all things in moderation.

The Gazette Article I can not tell if they are being facetious or if they have been bought as Colorado Springs and Colorado in general has been a hub for legalization.

You may have heard of the Charolett's Web strain out of Colorado and the Stanley Brothers. These Colorado gents took a new approach and started to breed the THC (the psycho active component of cannabis) down, making the strain provide less of a mental / physical buzz. In doing so they stumbled upon a strain that all but cures seizures in children. It is now determined CBD, another cannabinoid contained in marijuana and hemp, which has no psycho active aspects, is the component which quells the seizing brain and neurological system. How can the government say there is no medical value unless they have an alternate agenda to try and control this gift our Earth has provided.

And on that note:

Why in the hell is Hemp illegal? It is illegal because it is a phenomenal product which would rival the Cotton industry, the Paper industry, the Petroleum industry and the Medical industry. It is an amazing crop, it grows extremely fast and you do not have to rotate the crop. The fact you don't have to rotate the crop is an amazing aspect, think about it.

Anyway I guess I'm done for now, thanks for reading.

Michael

Newspapers Slam DEA For Not Rescheduling Marijuana

In the week since the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced that it would keep marijuana in the Controlled Substances Act’s restrictive Schedule I category, many people — including members of Congress and hundreds of Twitter users — have been quick to criticize the decision.

A number of daily newspaper editorial boards from around the country have weighed in, too, almost all of them slamming DEA for refusing to reclassify cannabis.

The federal government has for years employed a bizarre circular logic when it comes to marijuana. Officially deemed to have a high potential for abuse and no currently accepted medical application, marijuana is listed by the Drug Enforcement Administration as a Schedule 1 drug under the Controlled Substances Act — on a par with heroin and LSD. Yet that very listing has severely limited the research that could settle the question of whether marijuana does indeed have therapeutic value, as attested to by countless sufferers of glaucoma, cancer patients left nauseated from chemotherapy and a raft of other ailing people and their physicians who report anecdotally that marijuana eases suffering… This is a different kind of reefer madness. The DEA could have reclassified marijuana so that it could be treated like a prescription drug, freeing doctors to order it — subject to FDA oversight — for patients for whom they believe it provides benefits. Instead, the DEA opted to keep its policies mired in the 1970s, which will only exacerbate the growing divide between the states and feds.

Having marijuana on that [Schedule 1] list is deeply misguided since many scientists and President Obama have said that it is no more dangerous than alcohol… The D.E.A. and the F.D.A. insist that there is not enough scientific evidence to justify removing marijuana from Schedule 1. This is a disingenuous argument; the government itself has made it impossible to do the kinds of trials and studies that could produce the evidence that would justify changing the drug’s classification… Removing marijuana from Schedule 1 would be ideal. Reducing research restrictions and lessening penalties for users would be a step in the right direction.

Reading the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s report on marijuana, on how it should remain one of the nation’s most dangerous drugs and has no medical value, we can’t help but wonder what rock the agency’s leaders have been living under. Or what they’ve been smoking… We needed clarity on marijuana. Instead, most of what the DEA gave us was just more smoke.

[T]he Drug Enforcement Administration’s decision to stay with a 46-year-old law categorizing marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, a serious drug with no medical value, seems unreasonable. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence from people who have used it for medical reasons, and even as a “recreational” drug, is pot really more harmful than alcohol? That’s a difficult argument to make.

One of these things is not like the other: heroin, LSD, mescaline, ecstasy, oxycodone, cocaine, fentanyl, marijuana. If you picked marijuana, consider yourself more rational about drugs than the federal government… The United States’ draconian laws on marijuana have contributed mightily to the epidemic of incarceration that has destroyed families and lives across the nation, and have cost taxpayers billions of dollars. It’s unjustifiable. Marijuana isn’t nearly as dangerous as the drugs the federal government regulates so heavily. It’s long past time for the DEA to treat it that way.

Drug Enforcement Administration officials must be smoking something if they actually believe that heroin and marijuana deserve to be listed in the same category as controlled substances posing extreme dangers to public health. The two aren’t even in the same drug universe… Exactly a century ago, this newspaper feverishly argued that prohibition of alcohol was a bad idea, driven as it was by one religious segment of society determined to impose its standards on the rest of Americans. We lost that argument. Today, it’s hard to tell what is driving opposition to rational marijuana laws, but the DEA’s arbitrary Schedule I classification helps make rational debate difficult… Meanwhile, Mexican drug cartels engage in daily bloodbaths for control of marijuana smuggling routes into the U.S. We wonder, then, exactly whose interests is the DEA serving?

Even people who have never smoked marijuana, people who hate the smell and will likely vote against Proposition 64 to legalize recreational use are wondering about this week’s decision that leaves weed on the list of the most dangerous drugs in America… We needed clarity on marijuana, which controlled studies would provide. Instead, we got more fuzzy-brained regulatory nonsense.

Ultimately, though, there is a sense that the administration’s action this week amounts to little more than delaying the inevitable. Other states will consider measures to legalize recreational marijuana this November. Federal officials may be waiting for scientific evidence about marijuana’s efficacy, but by the time those studies cross their desks, they could well find that Americans have long since made up their own minds.

It’s an outbreak of reefer madness, meaning the disconnect between federal drug czars and 25 states that allow marijuana for medical or recreational use. The latest instance is the Drug Enforcement Administration’s decision to keep cannabis on the high shelf of dangerous drugs.

The federal Drug Enforcement Agency’s decision last week refusing to reclassify marijuana from the list of the nation’s most dangerous drugs to a less-restrictive classification defies not only the 25 states and the District of Columbia that now allow for the legal use of medical marijuana; it defies and hampers medical science itself.

The decision last week by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to keep classifying marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, lacking medicinal value, was disappointing… Certainly the drug has risks and can be abused, and surely it is — as is alcohol. But equating its danger to heroin is not credible.

The Drug Enforcement Agency has rejected petitions to remove marijuana from its list of Schedule 1 drugs — those with a high potential for abuse, and lacking any recognized medical uses. It’s laughable — and, for those whose lives have been ruined by a small-time marijuana arrest, tragic — that pot should remain in the same category as heroin and LSD.

In truth, marijuana should be treated as more akin to alcohol — a social drug whose use should not be encouraged but should be an individual decision to be made by adults. Yes, there is a possibility of abuse, but regarding it as similar to heroin or LSD flies in the face of logic and has instigated decades of indefensible enforcement efforts. Current federal drug policy was adopted in 1970 at a time when the Nixon administration was fostering a social war between the establishment and the counter-culture of the time, and it is an example of absurdity that the ethos of that era still influences marijuana laws.

But although the vast majority of editorial boards that weighed in on the ruling slammed the DEA, a handful of outliers actually praised to the decision to keep marijuana in Schedule I…

Advocates say the current classification of marijuana makes little sense: They cite studies that show pot can help patients manage pain without any serious risk of abuse. The only problem? The Food and Drug Administration has done studies of its own, and its experts do not agree. There’s one way to resolve the debate: more research. Until there is substantial evidence that marijuana does more to help than to hurt, the DEA is right not to reschedule the drug.

It is reassuring to see DEA officials resist political pressure to reclassify, in absence of sound scientific rationale for doing so. Most civilized societies have avoided marijuana free-for-alls, respecting potential pitfalls of a drug known to lower the IQs of teens and children. Colorado’s poorly regulated drug trade remains a crude venture, condemned by federal law, with unknown long-term consequences. We rolled the dice, enacting a law created by majority whim. In Washington, by contrast, sound judgment and patience have prevailed at the DEA. Science will light the way.

We’re in the habit of using quote marks around “medical” marijuana because, well, despite the branding effort by the pro-pot lobby there really is no such thing as “medical” pot. There is just pot, and many patients say it makes them feel better. But drug laws and regulations aren’t generally determined solely by popular opinion, and the decision by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to keep close control over research into the medical use of marijuana reflects that.